TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Can you solve the killer robo-ants riddle? - Dan Finkel
The good news is that your experimental robo-ants are a success. The bad news is that you accidentally gave them the ability to shoot deadly lasers . . . and you can't turn it off. Can you stop them from escaping their habitat before the...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The paradox of value - Akshita Agarwal
Imagine you're on a game show and you can choose between two prizes: a diamond - or a bottle of water. It's an easy choice _ the diamonds are more valuable. But if given the same choice when you were dehydrated in the desert, after...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Would you raise the bird that murdered your children? | Steve Rothstein
A mother honeyguide has placed its chick into a bee-eater's nest— puncturing all the other eggs in the nest and leaving only its own hatching alive. Over the following weeks, the host parents devotedly care for the hatchling whose mother...
TED-Ed
Why do we hiccup? - John Cameron
The longest recorded case of hiccups lasted for 68 years - and was caused by a falling hog. While that level of severity is extremely uncommon, most of us are no stranger to an occasional case of the hiccups. But what causes these "hics"...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: A day in the life of a Mongolian queen - Anne F. Broadbridge
As dawn breaks over a moveable city of ten thousand yurts, Queen Boraqchin readies her kingdom for departure to their summer camping grounds. While her husband, the grandson of Genghis Khan, is out raiding, she juggles the duties of...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How to stay calm under pressure - Noa Kageyama and Pen-Pen Chen
Your favorite athlete closes in for a win; the crowd holds its breath, and at the crucial moment ... she misses the shot. That competitor just experienced the phenomenon known as "choking," where despite months, even years, of practice,...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Why do people join cults? - Janja Lalich
Today, there are thousands of cults around the world. Broadly speaking, a cult is a group or movement with a shared commitment to a usually extreme ideology that's typically embodied in a charismatic leader. But what exactly...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: What causes headaches? - Dan Kwartler
In ancient Greece, the best-known remedy for a long-standing headache was to drill a small hole in the skull to drain supposedly infected blood. Fortunately, doctors today don't resort to power tools to cure headaches, but we still have...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Can you solve the river crossing riddle? - Lisa Winer
As a wildfire rages through the grasslands, three lions and three wildebeest flee for their lives. To escape the inferno, they must cross over to the left bank of a crocodile-infested river. Can you help them figure out how to get across...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What would happen if you didn't sleep? - Claudia Aguirre
In the United States, it's estimated that 30 percent of adults and 66 percent of adolescents are regularly sleep-deprived. This isn't just a minor inconvenience: staying awake can cause serious bodily harm. Claudia Aguirre shows what...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The "End Of History" Illusion - Bence Nanay
Time and time again, we've failed to predict that the technologies of the present will change the future. Recently, a similar pattern was discovered in our individual lives: we're unable to predict change in ourselves. But is there...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Defining cyberwarfare in hopes of preventing it - Daniel Garrie
Can you imagine a future where wars are fought not with bombs and bullets but computer viruses and pacemaker shutdowns? Cyberware is unique in that it is not covered by existing legal framework and it often inspires more questions than...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Inside your computer - Bettina Bair
How does a computer work? The critical components of a computer are the peripherals (including the mouse), the input/output subsystem (which controls what and how much information comes in and out), and the central processing unit (the...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The secret lives of baby fish - Amy McDermott
Coral reef fish, like the yellow tang surgeonfish, begin life in a fascinating and weird way - as tiny floating larvae! These babies are capable of drifting thousands of miles on ocean currents, far from the reefs where they were born....
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Ethical dilemma: Who should you believe? | Alex Worsnip
You're sitting on the couch, when you hear a knock on the door. The police have arrived to arrest your spouse— for murder. This accusation comes as a total shock, but their fingerprints were found on the murder weapon. Your spouse...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: A guide to the energy of the Earth - Joshua M. Sneideman
Energy is neither created nor destroyed - and yet the global demand for it continues to increase. But where does energy come from, and where does it go? Joshua M. Sneideman examines the many ways in which energy cycles through our...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: A day in the life of an ancient Athenian - Robert Garland
It's 427 BCE and the worst internal conflict ever to occur in the ancient Greek world is in its fourth year. Athens is facing a big decision: what to do with the people of Mytilene, a city on the island of Lesbos where a revolt against...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Four sisters in Ancient Rome - Ray Laurence
How did the young, wealthy women of Ancient Rome spend their days? Meet Domitia and her sister Domitia and her sister Domitia and her sister Domitia. Ray Laurence sketches the domestic life of leisure that these young girls lived,...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Beware of nominalizations (AKA zombie nouns) - Helen Sword
Few mistakes sour good writing like nominalizations, or, as Helen Sword likes to call them, zombie nouns. Zombie nouns transform simple and straightforward prose into verbose and often confusing writing. Keep your nouns away from...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Vampires: Folklore, fantasy and fact - Michael Molina
The myth of the bloodsucking vampire has stalked humans from ancient Mesopotamia to 18th-century Eastern Europe, but it has differed in the terrifying details. So, how did we arrive at the popular image we know, love and fear today? And...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why should you read "One Hundred Years of Solitude"? - Francisco Diez-Buzo
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" brought Latin American literature to the forefront of the global imagination and earned Garcia Marquez the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature. What makes the novel so...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Is capitalism actually broken? | TED-Ed
People have become increasingly worried that the threats we face today, like climate change and rising inequality, can't be solved by a capitalist economic system. So, is that true? And if it is, can we fix capitalism or do we need to...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: To Make Use of Water by Safia Elhillo
An animated interpretation of Safia Elhillo's poem "To Make Use of Water"
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How rollercoasters affect your body - Brian D. Avery
In 1895, crowds flooded Coney Island to see America's first-ever looping coaster: the Flip Flap Railway. But its thrilling flip caused cases of severe whiplash, neck injury and even ejections. Today, coasters can pull off far more...